Mindfulness (2 page)

How often do you live mindfully, meeting each moment of life as it presents itself, with full awareness, without judging it? If you're like most people, often you are trying to do two or three things at once. And you probably do most things automatically, without noticing what you're doing.

Perhaps, for example, you've decided to make yourself some tea; as you wait for the kettle to boil you either start doing something else – reading the paper, washing up, making a phone call – or maybe you start thinking about a conversation you had yesterday or look in the fridge planning what to have for dinner tonight. Your mind is not on the tea – it's not on what's happening right now.

It's easy to get so caught up in your thoughts and feelings about the past or future that, without realizing it, you've disconnected from what is happening right now in front of you.

Ok, so missing the full tea experience is not that big a deal! There are, of course, times when being able to think of more than two things at once allows you to get a lot done quickly and efficiently.

The real difficulties arise, however, when your mind gets lost in stressful thoughts about the past and the future: replaying painful experiences from the past and imagining worst-case scenarios about the future. At its most extreme, being stuck in the past leads to depression and being trapped in the future leads to anxiety.

Or, it may be that what's happening right now is painful. In those circumstances, you may live in denial; avoiding painful feelings and situations that you can't accept or bear to live with.

All this rewinding back to the past and fast forwarding to the future is exhausting and rarely productive.

Which of these situations are familiar to you?

The more often you answer yes, the more areas of your life can benefit from mindfulness. Read on!

There's nothing mystical about mindfulness. To be mindful simply means to be aware and engage with what's happening right now. It's about being in the moment.

If you've ever become absorbed in a crossword puzzle or a board game, sung your heart out or “lost” yourself in a book or a film, a letter you were writing or work that you were doing – then you've experienced mindfulness; you've been totally in the moment.

Children are great role models for being in the moment. Watch a child as he plays; he's not thinking about what happened yesterday, or what he's going to do later today. He's simply absorbed in what he's drawing, making or pretending to be. When he's upset, he yells and cries – nothing else matters but what has upset him. He'll cry about it, and then let it go; the offending situation gone and forgotten.

Have you ever taken small children to the cinema? Everything is new and amazing. They stare at the bright lights in the foyer. They stare at everyone sitting around them. They move the seats up and down, gawp at the big screen and flinch when the music starts. They jump on to your lap when it gets scary and they laugh out loud when it's funny. They live each moment.

Even cats show us how to live in the moment! When I look at our cat Norman, I'm sure he's not thinking about the new brand of cat food he had for breakfast or worrying about what's for dinner. Norman simply lives from moment to moment.

You can become mindful at any moment. You can do it right now. Stop everything. Focus on what's happening. What can you hear? What can you smell? Look straight ahead; what do you see? What can you feel? What can you taste?

Don't give it any thought; you don't need to like or dislike, approve or disapprove of what's happening. You simply need to be aware of it.

Even if nothing is there, just be aware of your breathing; the sensation of the air as it enters your nose or mouth and fills your lungs, and as it goes out again.

Does all this seem a bit pointless? How can this non-doing approach be of any value? Let me explain.

The ability to think; to think back on past events and to think about the future – to plan ahead – is a feature that defines us as humans. As well as being capable of thinking about things that
are
happening, we can think about:

• things that
  did and didn't
  happen
  
• things that
  have
  happened
  
• things that
  might
  happen
  
• things that may
  never
  happen at all.
  

But thinking is not always an unmitigated blessing. Too often, your thoughts can trap you; trap you in the past and trap you in the future.

If you're ruminating about events and going back over them again and again then you're living in the past. You're trapped there. Other times, you can be fretting about what lies ahead; anxious and worried: you're trapped in the future. And all the time your mind is chattering with commentary or judgement.

What occurs as a result is that there's no time to experience what's happening right now, because you're distracted by what may happen tomorrow and next week or maybe you're too busy worrying about what you did or failed to do yesterday.

Even when nothing much is happening,
something
is happening. Typically for most of us, it is thinking. Thinking is happening. Rather than simply being aware of what's happening, we're thinking about what is – or is not – happening.

Thinking seems to be our default setting.

If you've ever tried to meditate, the first thing you will notice is that your mind has a life of its own. It just goes on and on: thinking, musing, fantasizing, planning, anticipating, worrying, liking, disliking, remembering, forgetting, evaluating, reacting and so on.

A recent study
²
found that people spend half their waking hours thinking about something other than what they're actually doing, and this mind-wandering typically makes them unhappy.

The research, by psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert of Harvard University, used an iPhone Web app to gather 250,000 data points on peoples' thoughts, feelings and actions as they went about their lives.

“A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind” Killingsworth and Gilbert write. “The ability to think about what is
not
happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

They discovered that our minds are wandering about 46.9% of the time in any given activity, and the mind-wandering rate was at least 30% for all but one activity. The only activity that generally got people's undivided attention was having sex. (Really? Not sure that I believe that bit!)

The study discovered that people's feelings of happiness had much more to do with where their mind was than what they were doing.

People consistently reported being happiest when their minds were actually on what they were doing.

In his book,
The Power of Now
, Eckhart Tolle suggests that your mind is a superb instrument if used correctly. Used incorrectly, however, it becomes destructive. “It is not so much that you use your mind wrongly – you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over.”

Certainly, your mind can wander to good things. You can remember good times and anticipate upcoming events. Mind-wandering becomes a problem though when you are ruing the past, or worrying about the future.

But, the past is gone and the future isn't here yet. What exists between past and future is the present moment.

So how can mindfulness help?

Mindfulness is a way to look after your mind. Your mind thinks all day and dreams at night. It's always busy and you expect it to just keep going. You cannot stop the mind from thinking, but if it's not given rest, it won't function well.

Mindfulness can give you a break from the endless chatter going on in your mind. It's a bit like the commentary that comes with a sports programme on the TV. Two things are happening: firstly, the game itself and secondly the endless commentary. Turn off the sound and you can experience the game in a more direct way rather than through the mind of another. In your own life, your thoughts are doing the commentary, interpreting your experience: how hard it is, how great it is, how unfair, how beautiful, how wrong, how boring and so on.

Too often, you can get swept away by a tidal wave of thoughts and feelings. This can be particularly powerful when you are faced with worries, pressures and responsibilities and wanting things to be different.

Being mindful; paying attention to what is happening in the present moment is a welcome relief from these stressful and habitual thought patterns.

Mindfulness keeps you grounded and centred – less pushed by what's going on around you. You are more able to stay focused and be calmly present in the midst of both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.

It's not easy to “think straight” when your mind is overwhelmed and confused; it's hard to see through the mental clutter. Mindfulness helps you to make clear decisions more easily; to choose between one course of action and another.

However, this does not mean that you become rigid in your thinking and behaviour. Quite the opposite! Mindfulness allows you be more flexible with your thinking. When you're aware of how and what you are thinking, you will be able to disengage from established ways of responding and be open to new, more helpful ways.

You will find that when you are mindful you are less critical. Mindfulness frees you from judgement; it allows you to experience something without judging, assessing or analyzing. You are able to observe experience without getting caught up in it. You understand that what's happening is only difficult, bad, wrong etc. if you choose to think of it as such.

In fact, mindfulness helps you to be aware of when your thinking and self-talk have slipped into negative and unhelpful patterns; to know the type of thoughts and self-talk that fuel your emotions.

When you are mindful, you are more attuned to the links between your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. You are less reactive and more responsive. What's the difference? Well, if you
react
, you are likely to resist or oppose what is happening. If you
respond
, you behave in a way that is appropriate to the situation.

For example, if you feel you have behaved badly towards someone, you might react by attempting to justify your behaviour or deny that you did anything wrong. When you are mindful, you are aware of how you feel and what those feelings are telling you. As a result, you are more likely to respond to those feelings of guilt by putting right what you did wrong.

Mindfulness can help you manage a range of difficult emotions. It can help you, for example, to reduce and manage anxiety and worry. When you are focused on the present – on what is happening right now – it is not possible for worries and anxieties to come charging into your head.

Mindfulness is also a powerful way to prevent anger from getting out of control; you are more aware of the warning signs and able to manage the impulse to react immediately. You discover that everything slows down in a way that helps you to respond to difficult situations in a much calmer way.

The quality of your life improves – you are able to manage difficult situations more easily and get more out of the good things in life.

Mindfulness allows you to become totally absorbed in something and enjoy what you are experiencing. You are so focused on what's happening right now, that there is no thought of the “next” moment; nothing can distract you.

You are able to let go and turn your attention to the things that make life worth living.

Mindfulness frees you from being preoccupied with your own situation. Your mind opens to the world unfolding right before you – the singing of the birds, the changing light, the movement of traffic; whatever it is in front of your eyes that is happening right now. It doesn't matter how many times the birds have sung, the light has changed or the traffic has passed by, mindfulness can help you to see things differently; you are open to new possibilities even in familiar situations.

In fact, mindfulness turns a boring or routine activity into something new. It creates a new perspective; a new way of looking at things and gives you the opportunity to experience everything as if it's for the first time. It doesn't matter how often you've done something, it will always be different; there will always be a different way to do something.

And so, because you are open to new experiences, mindfulness allows you to let go of anything that limits possibilities. It gives you confidence and courage. You develop a stronger self-belief; you are positive about your abilities and are more able to fulfil your good intentions and achieve your goals.

There's no room for self-doubt, no room for unhelpful self-talk such as “I'll never be able to do this”, or “I'm not good enough”. Mindfulness increases your awareness of these judgemental thoughts; how unhelpful they are and how bad they make you feel.

You put aside the judgements and conclusions you came to as a result of past behaviour and instead think about what you learned that could help you do things differently the next time.

Last but by no means least, mindfulness helps you to understand and connect with other people more effectively. How? In so many ways. You are more able to engage with other people because you are focused on them; you are less distracted and more able to listen to what they're saying and feeling. You are more aware of other people's needs and feelings, you are able to experience and understand another person's situation from their perspective. You are more accepting of other people and the differences between you and there is an increased understanding between you. It's a win–win situation!

However, if being mindful simply means to be aware and to engage with what's happening right now, you might wonder how being mindful can be so helpful in such a wide range of situations. It's because there are several aspects and principles of mindfulness.